Syrian Communist Party

The Syrian Communist Party was a communist political party in Syria that was founded in 1944 by Khalid Bakdash. The party emerged from the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party, and the party took part in the resistance struggle against Vichy France during World War II. The party adopted a moderate stance rather than being a vanguard party, and Gamal Abdel Nasser and the United Arab Republic persecuted the communists due to their opposition to the creation of the UAR. The party was repressed until Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power, and the party became an unhappy ally of the Syrian Ba'ath Party rather than continuing to operate underground. In 1976, in response to the Syrian government's alliance with the Maronites of Lebanon against the PLO during the Lebanese Civil War, the Communist Party entered the opposition, and it was subjected to a crackdown until the Soviets intervened in 1986. The party was split between the pro-Perestroika Syrian Communist Party - Unified and the anti-Perestroika Syrian Communist Party - Bakdash in response to the Perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.